Chris Stewart: I wrote the book on Spain

The author Chris Stewart’s life in the wilds of Andalusia was tough — until the royalties started coming in, he tells Mark Stucklin

"Annie has only been stung once by a scorpion, admittedly in bed," says Chris Stewart, a smidgen defensively, about the home he has shared with his wife, Ana, for the past two decades in the Alpujarran hills of southern Spain. Scorpions might not loom large in most people's idea of heaven, but they're a fact of life here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Stewart, 58, isn't merely living the Spanish dream, he wrote the script. His three books about life as an Englishman in rural Andalusia - Driving Over Lemons, A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society - have sold more than 1m copies in the UK, inspiring countless Britons to try a new life abroad. He has done for southern Spain what Peter Mayle did before him for Provence.